


Unapologetic Truths

by Shi_Toyu



Series: Of Mischief and Metal [9]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Communication, Difficult Decisions, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Protective Natasha Romanov, Secret Relationship, Self Care, Self Confidence Issues, Talking, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7638892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shi_Toyu/pseuds/Shi_Toyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Natasha have a talk about what's been happening in the tower.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unapologetic Truths

Tony knew that Natasha knew he was in the room, but she didn’t look up from where she was carefully cleaning each individual piece of her .380 handgun. There were two handguns sitting to her right, another .380 and a 9mm, that were already meticulously cleaned. There were four on her left awaiting attention. Tony had been notified by JARVIS as soon as Natasha had entered the armory for her weekly ritual. It’d just taken him a little while to talk himself into coming down.

“Hey, do you have a minute?”

Natasha didn’t pause in her cleaning but she did tip her head in the direction of one of the empty chairs around the table. Tony settled in the seat gingerly. He knew what he wanted, but that didn’t make it any more comfortable to ask for. A gentle pressure brushed against his leg a moment later and he was relieved to find Doctor Doom twisting around for another pass. He lifted the large grey cat onto his lap, scratching him behind the ears and causing him to purr deeply.

“Just how many of those things are you planning to bring home?” Natasha asked suddenly, still not looking at him.

Her tone was mild, but Tony still felt himself shirking away. His eyes darted around the room to avoid the contact she clearly wasn’t going to make anyway. Doctor Doom nibbled Tony’s fingers gently to spur him back into petting.

“I, uh, don’t really know,” Tony confessed. “I haven’t really had a plan.”

It wasn’t like he went out looking for cats. He just seemed to be stumbling across homeless felines lately. Maybe Madam Masque and her three kittens had marked him somehow after he’d gotten them out of that bag. Was that a thing cats did? Doctor Doom and Victor had both been about to be put down at their shelter because no one had adopted them. Happy had forwarded the Facebook post on to Tony and how could he _not_ go get them?

Natasha hummed in response. Her fingers were quick and sure as she began reassembling the handgun. Tony briefly wondered how old she had been the first time she’d handled a firearm. He’d been three.

“You’re here to talk about Steve, then, I take it?”

Doctor Doom’s weight and warmth comforted Tony and he managed to hold back his flinch. The cat took up his entire lap, feet hanging off near his knees and his shoulder was propped up against Tony’s stomach.

“You know people better than almost anyone I know.”

One perfectly manicured, red eyebrow rose and Natasha finally looked at him.

“Almost? I must be slipping.”

Tony just shrugged, not exactly wanting to go into the fact that one of his lovers had an excellent understanding of people. Loki was still a supervillain, after all.  If there was anyone Tony needed to watch himself with, it was Natasha. She was the one who’d figured out he had someone down in his lab, after all.

“I’m trying to understand what happened,” he said instead. “I thought I understood it, but I didn’t.”

Natasha set the gun aside and picked up the next one, which she stripped almost completely by hand before turning to her tools to break it down into even smaller pieces.

“You thought you were at fault.”

Tony’s lips pressed tightly together.

“It made sense.”

“To you. But that shouldn’t be very surprising. You have a tendency to blame yourself for any unfortunate incidents that you are even just barely connected to. For you to be directly involved? There was no doubt.”

“Steve said it wasn’t my fault.”

Her eyes found his as she reapplied cleaner to her cloth.

“It wasn’t.”

“But I hid Bucky in my lab. I tried to hide it from all of you, from Steve more than anyone. I chose Bucky over him.”

“And what’s wrong with that? We all hide things from each other. Steve hides things from you just like you hide things from him. It’s the human condition. We all have secrets and we all have priorities. Bucky was a higher priority. You prioritized him over Steve and Steve prioritized him over you.”

Doctor Doom turned his head to lick at Tony’s arm while he continued to scratch him.

“I’m fighting down the urge to ask what Steve’s hiding now.”

Natasha’s gaze fell back to her weapon.

“That’s for him to tell you.”

Silence fell between them for a brief moment.

“I still feel like it was my fault.”

“And you don’t want to think about what it means if it _wasn’t_ your fault, right? If you weren’t at fault, then why would we, your team, betray you like that?”

Tony opened his mouth to deny it, to say it hadn’t been a betrayal, not really, but couldn’t seem to get the words out. He _felt_ betrayed.

“Why would you?” he asked instead.

 Natasha, whom Tony had never seen shy away from anything other than the Hulk, looked distinctly like she didn’t want to answer the question.

“Priorities,” was all she said.

“What kind of priorities?”

Natasha set down her cloth along with the piece she was polishing before leaning forward to rest her arms on the table, hands clasped in front of her.

“There were a lot of factors involved, Tony. You need to understand that.”

He scowled.

“I might understand it a bit better if you actually told me anything instead of just giving me the runaround constantly.”

“Loki’s invasion left its mark on all of us. Clint was still skittish around each of us, but he didn’t know you or the rest of the team before all that. Attacking me affected him a great deal because we had history. It wasn’t the same as if he were undercover and had to hurt me to gain an enemy’s trust. He had _no control_ and that shook him up a lot. He was tiptoeing and I couldn’t find a way to fix it.

“That morning in the kitchen, I realized you really were holding someone down in your lab, but I didn’t know who it was. You aren’t some mad supervillain, though. The only way you would hurt someone would be in self-defense or defending someone you care about and while, yes, you can do a _lot_ of damage, kidnapping isn’t really your style. Even if you were to kidnap someone, your lab would be just about the worst place to keep them, considering what they would have access to down there.

“So I knew from the start that you weren’t a threat, but I let it continue. Steve has a tendency to get caught up in things and, if anyone backed him up, I knew he would only fall deeper into his misguided assumptions. I jumped on board to facilitate that reaction in him, and purposely made choices with what I said in order to drive him into more of a frenzy.”

Tony gaped at her, his entire body frozen.

“But… why?”

“Because Clint would eventually come to the same conclusions I had. He’d probably figured there was no threat from you before we even left the kitchen. It would make him highly uncomfortable and, I had hoped, it would drive him to act _against_ me. Clint needed to be able to trust his own judgement again. I prioritized that, and him, over you and your safety, over the safety of whoever was in your lab. I made a choice, because I owe Clint more than I can ever repay.”

Tony’s fingers slowly curled in Doctor Doom’s fur, searching for some way to ground himself. The cat had stopped purring, but also hadn’t started nudging Tony to start up again. Tony wondered if he could sense the atmosphere.

“Did it work?”

Because now he was feeling even _more_ betrayed, though he was also chastising himself for the childishness of it. He at least wanted to know if it’d paid off for some benefit.

“No,” was the blunt reply. “But I found another way.”

“Great,” Tony huffed. “Just perfect.”

So Steve had genuinely thought Tony could be that horrible of a person and Natasha had used him to further her own ends. Clint had gone along with the whole thing nearly to the end out of some misguided level of guilt. He was really feeling the team love. Across the table from him, Natasha turned back to her weaponry.

“It wasn’t an ideal situation.”

His sudden bark of laughter was bitter, and Doctor Doom fled his lap in a heartbeat.

“Yes, I suppose that’s one way to put it. How am I supposed to just… How do I-I don’t know what to do with this, Natasha! How do I even _start_ to handle this whole thing?”

That earned him a long, steady look. He squirmed under Natasha’s carefully-blank gaze.

“That’s up to you, Tony. It’s a risk I knew I was running from the very beginning. There are a few questions you’re going to need to ask yourself. Do you still trust us to have your back on the field? Off of it? Do you still want us living here, taking advantage of your kindnesses? Do you-“

“ _Jesus,_ Nat! I’m not gonna kick you guys out!”

“You would be perfectly within your rights to do so.”

“I’m not gonna be that much of an asshole. I know you think I’m just some immature genius but I’m not going to take away your _home_ just because I got my feelings a little hurt. Give me at least a little bit of credit.”

Natasha slid a hand across the table, waiting until Tony cautiously took it with his own before continuing.

“You’re brilliant, Tony, with a capacity for caring for other people unlike any I have ever seen. You put on a front of being selfish for others, but you are an amazing person. You’re not an asshole and standing up for yourself when you’ve been wronged doesn’t make you one.”

Tony gaped at her in confusion, but couldn’t seem to muster up the courage to pull his hand away from hers. She might decide to remove a limb.

“Who are you and what have you done with Natasha?” he asked instead. “You do know I’ve seen the report you wrote about me for Fury, right?”

Natasha gave an inelegant snort.

“Oh, please. Fury had that entire report faked.”

“What?”

“It was a classic power play, Tony. I’m surprised you hadn’t already figured it out. Fury is the kind of man who is used to getting what he wants and _controlling_ his assets. You aren’t the kind of person who is easily controlled. Fury knew that if he asked you to join the Avengers then it would have to be on your terms. He made that report as an excuse to ‘reject’ you so he could manipulate you into doing exactly what he wanted.”

“That son of a bitch!”

This time, Tony had no problem ripping his hand from hers as he shot to his feet. The anger burned through his veins.

“It’s what Fury does,” Natasha placated. “I can understand it. As long as he’s the one in control, he’s the one with all the power.” She leaned towards him, her eyes glinting brightly. “But he’s not in control anymore. You are, Tony, and it’s about time you started taking care of _you_ and trusting the rest of us to take care of ourselves. We’re not your responsibility, Tony.”

“You’re my _friends!_ ”

She stood up slowly, rounding the table to stalk up to him like a lithe panther stalking its prey. Tony nearly had a heart attack when she pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“I sincerely hope you continue to think so.”

Then she turned and walked out the door, leaving her weapons right where they lay.

**Author's Note:**

> So this series is heading towards it's ending. We're getting there, people!


End file.
